BOOTLEG BLOG

The Mario Party Stream and How Toxicity Spreads.

TW: THIS SERIES CONTAINS UNCOMFORTABLE THEMES, BLOOD, AND VIOLENCE

I've been watching a lot of Mae vods in my off time as of late and one in particular caught my eye one night, titled "the mario party stream" it immediately reminded me of marciess's gmod stream, I opened the vod, started watching, and realized it was the same genre of media and I knew i was in for something amazing.

Like the essay on marciess's gmod stream I'll link to the full vod here as I'll be using timestamps to reference anything specific I want to make note of.

Mario Party!

For our stream today we have 4 girls playing Mario Party 1, Mae(naturally), Marcie(same girl behind the gmod stream), Bliss(who played Jess in the gmod stream), and Linus(who played Patty in the gmod stream). It generally starts off super normal for one of Mae's streams, hell there's nothing off about it, however Mae does seems a lot more argumentive and aggresive than she is during her typical streams.

Linus is notably on the floor during the game, as the couch isn't big enough to fit all 4 of them, though a lot of things Mae says seems to imply Linus was specifically made to sit on the floor by Mae.

(19:56)

Mae bribes Linus into making the less good play in offering to let her on the couch, Linus expressing genuine guilt to Marcie for falling for the peer pressure that doesn't even get her off the floor, as no one wants to switch with her, Mae specifically not wanting to switch with her because in her own words "it's MY stream." Hell immediately right after Mae chooses to steal coins from Linus as she "looks the weakest."

This moment in my opinion sets off a domino effect we see for the rest of the stream.

(22:49)

They end up making a stream poll for who should switch with Linus and get on the floor, as they discuss this the shot abruptly cuts to a shot in a basement with the number "03" in the top right corner, implying multiple cameras. This being the big signal to the viewers that this is indeed not a normal stream.

When the feed cuts back to them it's at first an entirely different shot deperate from the webcam, the audio quality is notably worse but we do see Bliss just sit back down in her original spot and once it comes back to the original shot we see Mae commanding Linus to get back on the floor, Bliss and Marcie as well but it feels more like in a "please just get this over with" kind of way if that makes sense.

Mae explains to chat that Linus is a lot louder than Bliss so it would mess with the audio levels if they do switch, how sincere this is is unclear, however as we get further in the stream she will make more mentions in trying to make sure the stream is perfect.

(25:42)

When Bliss goes to steal coins from Mae she seems GENUINELY angry over it and extremely bitter over a typical Mario Party event. Mae gets hit by a train right after, it really feels like Mae's aggression is riding the line between just exaggerated fun and genuine anger. Linus makes an off hand comment saying "it's true what they say about this game." This being a reference to the general jokey consensus that Mario Party ruins friendships, this small comment foreshadows much to come.

(29:43)

Bliss makes a silly "skill issue" joke which seems to genuinely tick off Mae, her saying "so why're you guesting on a stream instead of streaming it herself?" Heavily implying she has some sort of higher athority just because she's the one hosting the stream. Marcie pushes Mae even more by stealing coins from her which ends with Mae exclaiming "can you just let me win??"

(31:27)

Everyone in the room is clearly beginning to get tired of Mae being such a sore loser, this ends up with Bliss throwing the mini-game when paired up with her, her showing the controller to the camera to let the viewers know she lost on purpose, though she admits this immediately, pissing Mae off, saying "it's MY stream!!" again. Marcie and Bliss seem to consistently poke at Mae who feels like she's on the verge of throwing a temper tantrum because she isn't getting what she wants as Linus feels like she doesn't want to be involved.

(33:28)

Mae pauses the game and changes focus on the cute N64 horse on the board as an attempt to 'reset' the general tense mood in the room, Linus almost immediately getting singled out as Mae tries to sing Kumbaya with the other girls on the couch, both of them refusing, ending with an extremely awkward silence, Marcie starts to become snappy as well wanting the game just to continue and get this all over with.

(35:50)

Mae reads out a fake chat messages loudly exclaiming "AND STOP BEING FUCKING MEAN TO ME!" continuing with her thought process that she's the one being targetted when let's be honest, the whole group has kinda been targetting Linus. The tension in the room grows, Marcie seems to still be trying to have fun, Bliss and Linus seem uncomfortable (though to be fair Bliss seems to just be the quiet type), and Mae just gets more and more bitter. Linus also has a snoopy plush! Believe it or not this will be important later.

(44:41)

Despite her bitterness, Mae manages to get the first star of the game, this is followed up with another shot of the basement, I feel like the shots of the basement are meant to be signifiers of the discomfort in the group, a want to leave this situation that no one is enjoying but the other 3 are most likely trying to stick out so Mae doesn't start freaking out. When Mae keeps jabbing Marcie about getting hit by the train, Marcie gives an intense death stare at Mae, Marcie then whispers something to Bliss, Bliss whispers back.

(48:52)

We get a new shot of the basement, now it's specifically the stairs that lead down to it, with a shot of presumably one of the girl's boots on the steps. Labelled as "02"

(50:18)

During this mini-game Bliss whispers to Marcie yet again but Mae catches them immediately, stating she already knew they whispered before but didn't say anything about it.

About 2 minutes later Linus is given another chance with Boo, her having plenty enough coins to steal Mae's star, Mae INSISTS that she shouldn't because it'd be "bad content" for some reason. This sets Linus off stating that "it's ALWAYS about content with you" and Mae genuinely can't grabble with what's wrong with that. Linus doesn't conform to Mae's pressure this time and goes ahead and steals the star from her, pissing her off even further. The argument almost continues but Linus gives up pretty quickly when Mae's only argument on why she shouldn't be stolen from is because "I'm me!" And once again Marcie whispers to Bliss.

(54:26)

Mae gets fed up with Marcie constantly accidentally pausing the game so she takes Linus's controller in order to make a save state on the Switch N64 game collection, which ends with her accidentally loading a save state from all the way at the beginning of the game, despite the fact that she literally did this because she thought Marcie would fuck it up.

Mae ends up loading a different save state from several days ago with the same characters, Mae now being in first place, which honestly makes me wonder if this was actually accidental on Mae's part or not, and even if it was, she's definitely not gonna throw away this chance to start winning.

Completely unrelated but Linus describing an N64 controller as a "Wii nunchuck stuck to a snes controller" is now my favorite descriptor for that very fasscinating controller I've ever heard.

(58:29)

Turns out in this save state Mae is also right next to the next star, everyone looking incredibly irritated at this realization, Marcie honestly looks so close to kicking Mae's ass honestly. Mae gets the star and almost immediately gets another as it spawns right in front of her.

(1:03:58)

Mae gets yet another star, Mae saying "like how you're all the 3 stars in my life :)" clearly not being the right time. The 3 girls look about ready to give up, both Marcie and Bliss constantly whispering to one another even before this. The stream is actively hard to watch at this point, none of them want to be there and Mae seems borderline oblivious to it. Marcie ends up getting up, saying she needs a break, Bliss follows her shortly after.

Discomfort

(1:06:54)

We cut to the basement stairs again, and after awhile we see the duo walk down the stairs. All audio is completely muted but you can tell what's happening just by the body language. Marcie is ranting very aggresively about Mae and Bliss looks very distressed. Bliss gripping her head unable to handle the situation, the camera eventually cuts out entirely. Once it cuts back in the audio comes back for just a moment. The best of what I can make it is:

(Mostly Bliss, maybe some of it being Marcie)"Hey Marcie, how do you feel about... (???) just wanted to run it by you again (?) o-or... (audio briefly cuts out again) if... we... no... it would just be you (???)"
(Probably Marcie)"Like I feel like we could swing it"
(Maybe Bliss)"I don't know..."

We cut back to the regular room and see Mae and Linus playing ARMS, Linus makes a comment about the internet going out, Mae goes to check though we don't really get any confirmation either way, their audio ends up going out however. Suddenly a poll appears simply just saying "CHOOSE NOW" with the numbers 2 and 3, chat catches on that this most likely has to do with the cameras and tries to vote 2 since 2 has audio.

(1:13:58)

Mae gets up for one reason or another, presumably because she just realized the audio was out, then it cuts back to the basement as we watch Marcie desperately try to light a cigarette in the basement. We cut back and Bliss has returned from the basement. Marcie comes back shortly after and claims she was just grabbing a Monster. They go through everyones' favorite process of connecting controllers to the Switch.

(1:23:52)

Tensions grow stronger as Mae decides to target Marcie specifically for not laughing at her joke, the line keeping from everything falling apart is getting thinner and thinner, Marcie yelling "GET FUCKED" the moment Mae gets hit by the train despite 2 other people also getting hit.

Marcie and Bliss make light jabs at Mae as she adjusts her microphone saying "aren't you supposed to be good at this? Isn't this your job?" Mae ignores them until Bliss makes an inconsequential comment on Mae taking a drink of her Monster and Mae retorts with "that's what your dad said." This could just be a "haha I fucked your dad" joke but honestly the phrase seems to imply Mae is targetting something more personal with Bliss, though I could just be reading a bit too much into it.

(1:30:42)

Bliss abruptly and in a monotone voice claims she needs to go to the bathroom, Marcie claims she also has to, Mae immediately questions this and the 2 don't seem to entirely even try to hide the fact that they're sneaking off anymore, claiming to use the downstairs bathroom. And thus we are once again back downstairs.

Oddly enough Marcie seems to be carrying a tripod with her, the audio is back but the conversation is still hard to hear as they're so far away. But they're definitely planning something. Talking about taking "her", most likely Mae, to trains, talking about playing another mini-game. It's hard to entirely tell, until once they set up the camera and become a lot more audible, it seems they're plotting to attack Mar and filming it. Intentionally or not the 03 camera gets knocked down and we overhear I THINK Marcie contemplating if this is even a good idea. The moment they do Linus shows up asking what they're doing since according to Mae there isn't a bathroom in the basement.

The Plan

(1:37:13)

They return upstairs and Mae is beyond pissed, there's no more hiding that they're all over this, Bliss asking how much longer the game is and Mae insisting they should all be kinder to each other. Marcie also pulls the classic toxic strat in Hot Bo-Bomb where you hold the bomb until right before it explodes and IMMEDIATELY throws it to Mae, which I find incredibly funny. RIght after, the webcam freezes and crashes entirely.

Mae yells at Marcie to fix it as she was the one who set it up, a full argument breaks out because the camera's battery died despite Marcie telling Mae beforehand to charge it. Linus desperately tries to fix the problem but it seems like the entire situation is beyond saving no matter what she does.

Marcie storms off into the basement and sets up another tripod exclaiming "I'll show you good content."

We cut back to the main room and a full argument finally breaks out, during said argument Linus seems to dissociate while intensely staring at the Snoopy plush from before, Bliss leads Mae to the basement. And what follows is...
(1:44:06 if embed breaks)

How Toxicity Spreads

I think most people who actively play Nintendo games have heard the phrase before; "Mario Party ruins friendships." But in truth, how frail does a friendship have to be in order to be ruined by a game everyone knows is hinged on luck?

I mean like really think about it, what kind of person do you have to be in order to completely throw away a perfectly good bond over a silly game? Assuming the bond was ever good at all.

Mae plays the role of that friend, that friend takes the game way too seriously, the friend that takes everything as a personal attack, the friend that refuses to reflect on how she could possibly be hurting those around her.

As much as I kinda hate the word because of the pop culture-ification of it, I think it's same to say that the character of Mae here is a very toxic individual. And this piece of media is both a great example on how something small can completely destroy a friendgroup if their real bond is fragile enough, but I also feel it's a great example of how toxicity spreads from person to person.

Marcie having extra cameras, and potentially also being the person who placed the previous cameras as she is noted as the one who set up the webcam, the murder of Mae seems to have been planned even before the stream. I choose to believe that Bliss and Marcie had already planned for this, whether or not Linus was also part of it is unclear but she definitely joins in if not.

Marcie and Bliss are far from saints in this story as well, it's clear that Mae had been behaving like this for awhile enough to push them to basically make a snuff film of them stabbing Mae to death. And I think the group turning to brutally murder Mae is a perfect metaphor for toxicity spreading.

Being around toxic people are bound to worsen you yourself, even if you hate them, even if you actively go against them, their poison can infect you and you can become just as bad as them if not worse.

There's this underlining implication that Mae's behavior may be a byproduct of spiralling mental health due to being on the verge of getting evicted along with money issues, this I feel like is extremely important as I feel like ignoring the fact that toxic people are PEOPLE can increase your chances of gaining their toxicity even more.

Regardless, the best method with toxic people is to cut off from them, even if their toxicity is a byproduct of a bad life, you can't save them, if you try to, you will lose your mind.